Stocks Opened Slight Gains

U.S. stocks opened slight gains on Tuesday as investors continued to digest a bailout plan for Spanish banks. The Dow Jones Industrial Averaqe lately rose 39.81 points to 12,451.04. The S&P 500 added 4.01 point to 1,312.94. The Nasdaq Composite climbed 10.59 points to 2,820.32.

Continued unease over the euro-zone’s debt crisis and Spain’s bailout package made for another day of pressure on Spanish and Italian bond yields, while stocks tried to stabilize on hopes for imminent European Central Bank action. The Stoxx Europe 600 index inched 0.3% higher to 242.54. The index was largely flat in the prior session.

U.S. import prices dropped 1% in May, the biggest one-month drop since June 2010, the Labor Department said Tuesday. Prices for U.S. imports also decreased over the past 12 months, falling 0.3%, the first year-over-year decline since October 2009. Fuel prices tumbled 4.2%, while nonfuel imports edged down 0.1%.

U.S. states expect to collect higher tax revenue in the coming budget year that combined would top pre-recession levels, according to a survey released Tuesday. Total tax revenue is forecast to rise 4.1 percent to $690.3 billion in the 2013 budget year, according to a twice-yearly survey by the National Governors Association and the National Association of State Budget Officers.

Verizon Wireless, the nation’s largest cellphone company, is dropping nearly all of its phone plans in favor of pricing schemes that allow consumers to share data usage among up to ten phones and other devices. The new plans will let individuals add non- phone devices like tablets and laptops to their plans, as well as the phones of family members.

Apple Inc. unveiled a series of software features for its mobile phones and computers Monday that place erstwhile partner Google Inc. squarely in its path. Apple showed off its next-generation MacBooks, as well as a new Maps app and Facebook integration in an update to its mobile operating system, iOS 6. Jessica Vascellaro has details on The News Hub.